Philosophy

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Moral principles Thursday, December 19, 2024, 02:07 Semicompatibilism is the view that causal determinism is compatible with moral responsibility, while making no assertions about the truth of determinism or free will. The term was coined by John Martin Fischer.[1][2] Prominent semicompatibilists include Harry Frankfurt. Criticisms of this view include the principle of alternative possibilities. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semicompatibilism

Theology Thursday, December 19, 2024, 02:19 Molinism, named after 16th-century Spanish Jesuit theologian Luis de Molina, is the thesis that God has middle knowledge (or scientia media): the knowledge of counterfactuals, particularly counterfactuals regarding human action.[1] It seeks to reconcile the apparent tension of divine providence and human free will.[2]: 20 Prominent contemporary Molinists include William Lane Craig, Alfred Freddoso, Alvin Plantinga, Michael Bergmann, Thomas Flint, Kenneth Keathley,[2] Dave Armstrong, John D. Laing, Timothy A. Stratton,[3][4] Kirk R. MacGregor, and J.P. Moreland. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molinism Hand-to-hand combat over the vocative of the ego; in the 1950s, armed hand-to-hand combats between two interpretations of Descartes. Fighting for ideas. uj this kind of debate can no longer exist; But there is an important concept; this concept is the concept of God. This is a source of immense controversies. The book does not exist to be believed but to be examined. What the book means is more important than what it says.

Lesser-known philosophers Wednesday, January 8, 2025, 19:26 Chōmin Nakae (中江兆民, Nakae Chōmin?), pen name of Tokusuke Nakae (中江篤介, Nakae Tokusuke?) (1847-1901), was a Japanese political thinker and a journalist active during the Meiji era1. Chōmin is one of the words meaning “the people.” From https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chōmin_Nakae

Morality Saturday, January 25, 2025, 15:59 Morality as a framework that nullifies political work.

Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish 12 February 2026 16:12 Delinquent - connoted --> product of the prison Offender - non-connoted --> Illegalism - non-connoted -->

The main issue: The mutation of power The issue is not whether prison is “more humane” than torture, but understanding how power became more efficient and more far-reaching. Foucault observes the shift from sovereign power (the King who punishes the body in a spectacular manner) to disciplinary power (the State that manages life and “re-educates” the mind).
The main theses A. From the tortured body to the controlled soul Punishment ceases to be a spectacle of suffering and becomes a technical procedure. The aim is no longer to break the body, but to transform the individual, to correct their “dangerousness.” B. The creation of “docile bodies” Discipline is a political technology. Through drilling (school, barracks, factory), the aim is to make individuals both economically useful and politically compliant. C. Panopticism This is the most famous thesis. Modern power operates on visibility. If individuals feel permanently observed, they end up internalizing surveillance and disciplining themselves.
The arguments and the workings of power Foucault details the instruments of “good training” used by institutions:
Hierarchical surveillance: A gaze that sees everything without being seen.
Normalizing sanction: One does not only punish breaking the law, one punishes deviation from the “norm.” The goal is to make everyone alike (the good student, the good worker). to transform individuals into “cases” (medical, school, judicial records).
Key examples used by Foucault The torture of Damiens (1757) The book opens with the atrocious description of the drawing and quartering of Robert-François Damiens. This is the example of sovereign power: the punishment must be spectacular, because the crime is a direct offense against the King’s power. The prisoners’ timetable (1830) Foucault compares Damiens’s torture to a set of prison regulations 80 years later. Everything there is timed to the minute, silent, organized. This contrast shows that we moved from vengeance to the management of time and behavior. Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon Foucault uses this architectural project as a metaphor for modern society. A central tower allows the surveillance of cells arranged in a circle. The prisoner never knows when he is being watched, so he must behave as though he always were. This is the automation of power.

• Leprosy (exclusion): The leper is cast out of the city (the model of banishment). • The plague (grid control): People are confined to their homes, every street is inspected, every name is recorded. This is the ancestor of modern disciplinary management. 5. The final thesis: The carceral archipelago Foucault concludes that prison is not an exception, but a reflection of our society. Schools, hospitals, and barracks resemble prisons because the logic is the same: normalizing individuals. “Is it surprising that prisons resemble factories, schools, barracks, hospitals, which all resemble prisons?” Punishment Discipline Prison Prison is regarded as the most excellent punishment. It is regarded as the pinnacle of civilization. Yet, for Foucault, it is useless when it is not dangerous. Why did prison become the norm? a slightly stricter barracks, a school without leniency, a gloomy workshop, but, at bottom, nothing qualitatively different. This double foundation — juridico- economic on the one hand, technical-disciplinary on the other — made the prison appear as the most immediate and the most civilized of all punishments Total control of the individual several senses: it must take charge of every aspect of the individual — physical training, aptitude for work, daily conduct, moral attitude, dispositions; the prison, far more than the school, the workshop, or the army, which always involve a degree of specialization, is “omnidisciplinary.” Moreover, the prison has no outside and no gap; it does not stop except once its task is fully accomplished; its action on the individual must be uninterrupted: incessant discipline. Finally, it gives an almost total power over the inmates; it has its own internal mechanisms of repression and punishment: despotic discipline. It carries to their highest intensity all the procedures found in other disciplinary apparatuses Prison uses 1/ isolation 2/ labor (but unpaid) 3/ the grading and codification of punishments Advantages of prison for power; • The economy of punishment: No more public massacres (torture) that could provoke riots. Prison is a “clean,” invisible, and graduated punishment (time is taken, not flesh). • The transformation of the individual: It allows the criminal to be treated no longer as an enemy of the King but as an individual to be “corrected.” This is the invention of the “delinquent character,” which one

of the King, but as an individual to be “corrected.” This is the invention of the “delinquent character,” which one can study and treat. • The creation of “docile bodies”: Through the strict timetable, compulsory labor, and constant surveillance, prison transforms an undisciplined individual into a useful cog (or at least a submissive one). • The production of knowledge: Prison is a laboratory. By observing inmates, power produces knowledge in psychology, sociology, and criminology. • The manufacturing of repeat offenders: Instead of reintegrating, prison breaks social ties and makes the return to “normal” life almost impossible. • The school of crime: By bringing offenders together, prison allows them to organize, build networks, and refine their techniques. • The creation of a “reserve army”: Prison marks the individual for life (criminal record). Once released, the former inmate is often condemned to marginality or crime in order to survive. • The punishment of the family: Prison impoverishes the inmate’s family, thereby creating the conditions of the poverty that often leads to new crimes. If everyone knows prison does not work (since crime is not decreasing), why do we keep it? His answer is this: prison succeeds very well at producing delinquency. It is impossible to eliminate all theft, all fraud, or all trafficking. • Helping power: Prison allows crime to be concentrated within a small group of individuals who are well identified, recorded, and monitored. • This is what Foucault calls “controlled illegalism.” It is easier for the State to monitor 10,000 known delinquents than to monitor the petty fraud of 20 million citizens. Once a class of people has been created who can no longer work anywhere (because of their prison record), they become dependent on the system. • Informants (the “snitches”): Power uses delinquents to monitor other delinquents. The police rely on this milieu to obtain information. • Dirty work: Historically, Foucault notes, power has often used delinquents as strikebreakers, as agents provocateurs in demonstrations, or to run lucrative but illegal trades (prostitution, gambling) from which power sometimes draws profit or influence. 4. Justifying the extension of surveillance This is doubtless the most contemporary point. • Helping power: The figure of the “evil delinquent” (the thief, the attacker) serves as a scarecrow. By stirring up the threat of crime in the media, power can get the population to accept control measures that affect everyone: ○ More surveillance cameras. ○ More frequent identity checks. ○ Increased police presence. • Without crime, people would not accept being so closely monitored. It serves as the engine of the “society of control.” imprisonment is never to be confused with mere deprivation of liberty. The excess of the carceral over the judicial Offender, delinquent, illegalism Prison that transforms the individual

Prison that transforms the individual Prison; a system that works; and therefore allows a delinquent to be transformed into a normal individual There he establishes a distinction between illegalisms of property, such as the theft of food or squatting, and illegalisms of rights, such as tax fraud or undeclared work. He attributes this distinction to the gap between the working class and the bourgeoisie, and points to the tolerance shown by courts and police toward the latter, whereas proletarians, by contrast, are closely monitored From https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illégalisme_(Foucault)

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